Grid Storage Company Gets Bill Gates as Investor

[cprise]

EDIT

Aquion Energy’s strategy is to use cheap materials and manufacturing process. The electrodes on its batteries are activated carbon and manganese oxide and individual battery modules are packaged in plastic containers. It uses a water-based electrolyte, which is environmentally benign if there is a spill. (See, Building Cheap Batteries to Circumvent the Grid.)

Its first product, due by the end of this year, will be a battery built as a stack, which is about four feet high, made of individual modules. It’s also packing the modules onto larger square pallets and, by next year, a 20-foot shipping container able to store 200 kilowatt-hours and deliver 50 kilowatts of power, Ted Wiley, the company’s vice president of business and market development told me last month.

Initially, Aquion Energy is targeting renewable energy project developers who can use batteries to store energy and deliver it at peak times, when power is more expensive, he says. The batteries should work for up to 10,000 cycles, about a 10 year usable life, which Aquion expects to extend in future versions. In terms of cost, Wiley says the price will be between lead-acid batteries—the cheapest available now—and lithium-ion batteries.

EDIT

http://www.technologyreview.com/view/513256/bill-gates-spreads-his-battery-bets-on-aquion/

[BlueStreak]

1. Good stuff. To put this scale in perspective ...

the article describes a product as: "a 20-foot shipping container able to store 200 kilowatt-hours and deliver 50 kilowatts of power".

A typical power plant is maybe 400 megawatts. Let's say we wanted to be able to buffer 10% of that capacity. That would be 40 megawatts, or 800 of these units. It isn't clear that this scale would work.

Of course, the really big interest is in being able to capture excess wind and solar energy, which is more like a 24-hour cycle. But it is essentially the same arithmetic.

At this early stage, it seems like they are off by an order of magnitude, but it is a start. This project has a chance of making a really big change somewhere down the road.

Gates is no dummy.

[cprise]

2. My guess is

...if anything, they'll be pleasantly surprised how these storage schemes work for the grid. Most developed counties already have large enough grids that allow solar and wind supply to average-out to predictable curves. There are credible studies that show a 40% renewable share can be accomplished with very little storage--as long as the "base supply" is willing to change its business model to a "dispatch supply" (not to be confused with peaking).


What's interesting about this news is that Gates, normally a nuclear booster, has seen fit to invest in this field.

[RobertEarl]

4. Interesting

Are you saying that when you add up all the wires, transformers and all the rest of the hardware connected to the grid, that it can be considered to be storing electricity? Makes sense.

[BlueStreak]

5. I don't think that was the idea

Although I guess there is some buffering of power as it floats through the grid. I think the point is that if you consider wind and solar as your PRIMARY power and consider natural gas, coal, geothermal, and hydro to be SUPPLEMENTAL, you really don't need too much battery storage. You really just need enough battery storage to cover momentary peaks as you bring those supplemental sources up and down.

That definitely should be possible with hydro -- dimply close down the input gates. I'm not sure that is as practical with coal and natural gas, and I'd think it is not practical at all with nuclear plants. These "boiler" type generators would take hours or days to adjust.

But the bigger point was that the political barriers might be greater than the technical ones. Often each generation source is owned by a different entity. And their business case is probably based on full utilization. For them to accept a supplemental role would require a whole new business model.

[RobertEarl]

7. Buffering would be about all it would do... duh!

Last edited Thu Apr 25, 2013, 12:17 PM - Edit history (1)

Wind farms are making a killing these days. They probably are the most interested in storage since the wind does almost all the work, potentially 24 hours a day, rain or shine.

The big boilers are going to end up costing the big utilities lots of money because they have lots of maintenance and stranded costs just keeping the water warm.

Most of their business plans span 40 years and growth every year is the basis of their planning. Problem is, here in the US, people have reduced their consumption and alternatives are growing. The big power plants are not being used like they were planned on being used. There is a negative growth curve for the big boilers. The only way to save them now is for them to build storage, and quit building more boilers?

IOW, the boilers need storage in their planning. Seems boilers need storage to survive?

[BlueStreak]

8. I agree. The power companies have to turn the business inside out

It is a little ironic because utility companies have been considered the very safest of stocks, precisely because their business model was so unchanging. But they really are being pushed in new directions now. Some are adapting. others, maybe not.

One I particularly like is WGL, which serves a big population around DC. For years they have been experimenting with solar, wind and other projects. They seem very open-mided to the new ways of doing things.

[cprise]

9. Coal can be dispatchable at smaller time scales

Germany is bringing online a new coal plant that takes IIRC about 15 min to adjust.

[kristopher]

3. Investigate the role of "frequency regulation" in delivering power on the grid.

That is where this technology has value today.

[BlueStreak]

6. Here's a pretty good paper on that

http://www.ornl.gov/~webworks/cppr/y2001/rpt/122302.pdf